came to
town. I never was more surprised in my life."

He went to Philadelphia the next autumn, and consulted Griswold
regarding a poetic romance he had written--about a thousand lines in
length--and Griswold advised him to publish it in a volume with other
poems. He wrote to a friend to inquire how much the printing and
binding would cost, and finding that the expense would not be very
great, he concluded to ask his friends to subscribe for the volume.
When he had received enough subscriptions to pay the cost of
publication, he brought the volume out. It was entitled "Ximena; or,
The Battle of the Sierra Morena, and Other Poems. By James Bayard
Taylor." (The James was added by mistake by Griswold.) It was
dedicated "To Rufus W. Griswold, as an expression of gratitude for the
kind encouragement he has shown the author."

The poems contained in this volume were never republished in after
years. The book was fairly successful, and was distinctly a step
upward; but it did not fill the young writer with undue conceit. In
writing to a friend of his ambition at this time, he says: "It is
useless to deny that I have cherished hopes of occupying at some
future day a respectable station among our country's poets. I believe
all poets are possessed in a greater or less degree of ambition; it is
inseparable from the nature of poetry. And though I may be mistaken, I
think this ambition is never given without a mind of sufficient power
to sustain it, and to achieve its lofty object. Although I am desirous
of the world's honors, yet with all the sincerity I possess I declare
that my highest hope is to do good; to raise the hopes of the
desponding; to soothe the sorrows of the afflicted. I believe that
poetry owns as its true sphere the happiness of mankind."

What could be nobler and more sensible than that! Even his earliest
poetry has in it no false, slipshod sentiment. Its subject is nature
and heroic incident, and is indeed a faithful attempt to carry out the
aim so well stated above. Some have doubted whether Bayard Taylor
really had the power which he says he thinks is given to all who have
the ambition which he felt. But none can fail to admire the spirit in
which he worked, and to feel satisfied with the results, whatever they
may be.

CHAPTER V

A TRAVELER AT NINETEEN

It was not as a poet, however, that Bayard Taylor was to win his first
fame. At the age of nineteen, when he had but half completed his four
y